FYC | It’s time to Consider HARD TRUTHS…
Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
An Oscar hopeful. The Academy pushes the Oscar nominations. And Chris Abbott minus Wolf Man.
Let’s go!
To our readers in LA being affected by the fires, our heart goes out to you. Please stay safe.
FYC | Hard Truths | Best Actress | Best Director | Best Picture | Best Original Screenplay.
Hard Truths, the new film by Mike Leigh (Dir: Mr. Turner, Naked), explores the world of a pathologically cantankerous woman, played brilliantly by Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Secrets & Lies, In Fabric, Without A Trace).
The film, which premiered at TIFF and captured the best reviews of Leigh’s career, keeps us external to Jean-Baptiste’s character for much of the movie so we can experience in unison how the external world bothers her.
Everyone just rubs her the wrong way, from her husband, who won’t take off his shoes in the house, to her son, who won’t make anything of himself, to the supermarket clerk, who doesn’t smile at her. She is a wife, mother, and daughter who fights everyone away with her acerbicness to the point of high comedy.
At one point at the NYFF screening I attended, the audience burst into laughter during a monologue about how annoying she found the British version of PETA.
But at the heart, her character wants to be seen as a human being.
Jean-Baptiste explained:
“She’s in a lot of pain.”
That’s where the film becomes transcendent.
There’s an utter frankness to not just the performances but also all the filmic elements, which allow us to peer deep into the heart of this character, from the hard light to the stripped-down camera shots.
The film is about not damaging each other in our relationships and treating each other like human beings.
It’s a deeply felt work that seems to be destined for the Oscars.
Marianne Jean-Baptiste reunites with Mike Leigh for the first time since Secrets & Lies (1996), which won the Cannes Palme d’Or and went on to earn five Oscar nominations, including one for Jean-Baptiste for Best Supporting Actress.
Mike Leigh has impressively accumulated five nominations for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar and is tied with Ingmar Bergman for the third most nominations received in the category, only behind Federico Fellini (6 nominations) and Woody Allen (16 nominations).
Hard Truths, is being released limited in the U.S. on January 10 and nationally on January 17th by Bleecker Street.
For More:
Exclusive Hard Truths Behind the Scenes Featurette. For The Industry’s eyes only:
Hard Truths trailer. The moment when she calls someone an ostrich is just gold.
Get Tickets here.
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
As wildfires rage in LA, many events, like the WGA Awards nominations, have been canceled.
Oscar Nominations will be announced on Sunday, January 19th (pushed by 2 days).
Warner Bros.’ Josh Goldstine (Head of Marketing) and Andrew Cripps (Head of International Distribution) are stepping down.
Peacock president Kelly Campbell is stepping down from her position.
Disney announced that their combined streaming services (Disney +, Hulu, ESPN+) have 157 M monthly active users.
Prime releases the Reacher season 3 trailer.
Apple TV+'s Mythic Quest drops a season 4 trailer.
Theodore Farnsworth, former MoviePass CEO, pleads guilty to securities fraud.
Jack Quaid is one sick F*** in Companion. In his new film, he seems to be getting off on torturing his robot slave, Sophie Thatcher (Heretic).
Tom Holland will produce and star in an adaptation of John Grisham’s best-selling legal/thriller novel The Partner.
See Chris Abott’s more subtle (non-Wolf Man) violent side in TIFF’s Bring Them Down.
DGA + SAG Nominees.
Goodfellas is unveiling a whole catalog of French-language films slated to premiere this year.
Founder and former CEO of London-based distribution and production company Modern Films (Memoir of a Snail), Eve Gabereau will run Vue Lumière.
Bollywood’s new blockbuster is Toxic.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
The wildfires in LA rage on. And our hearts go out to everyone affected.
Here is what is being canceled or postponed:
WGA Awards nominations
Postponed 1.9 → 1.13
The 2025 Critics Choice Awards
Postponed 1.12 → ?
Film Independent's Project Involve First Look Screening
Postponed 1.9 → ?
Canceled Premieres
Roadside Attractions’ The Last Showgirl
Max’s The Pitt
Paramount’s Better Man
Universal’s Wolf Man
Prime’s Unstoppable
Bleecker Street’s Love Me
Netflix’s Back in Action (NYC Premiere)
Postponed Shoots
NBC’s Hacks
NBC’s Suits LA
Prime’s Fallout Season 2
ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy
Closed Offices
Universal City
Walt Disney Studios
Universal
Warner Bros. Studios
WME
The most seismic disruption for the film industry is the Oscar Voting period:
Last day to vote for nominations
Pushed 1.12 → 1.14 (Tuesday) 5 p.m. PT
Nominations announcement
Pushed 1.17 → 1.19 (Sunday)
The Entertainment Industry Foundation has started a disaster relief fund.
Warner Bros. is facing a major shakeup. Both Josh Goldstine (IMDBpro Link), the marketing chief behind the universally heard Barbie (2023) promo is officially stepping down, and Andrew Cripps (IMDBpro Link), the studio’s head of international distribution, is also leaving his position. These major departures are part of an overall structural reorganization at the studio to recuperate and regain footing after the pandemic, two labor strikes, $40bn in debt, 60% stock price drop since 2022, a $9bn write down on their assets and a possible split.
Peacock president Kelly Campbell is stepping down from her position at the streamer after three-plus years of being involved with NBCUniversal. Campbell joined Peacock after several years with Hulu, and the news of her departure comes just a little over a month after NBCU parent company Comcast announced it is looking to separate NBC, Peacock, and Bravo from its multiple smaller-scale cable networks, including:
MSNBC
CNBC
E!
Golf Channel
Oxygen
USA
After the success of the Summer Olympics, Peacock boosted its subscribers by 36 M in the third quarter (now, that is not to say many people most likely canceled their subscription after the games). Despite the streamer seemingly doing well, multiple strikes, a severe lack of funding, and an overload of additional responsibility to try and recover from recent industry hits may be causing some longtime hires to consider other options.
Tidbits:
Companies keep dropping their Monthly Active User Numbers.
Here’s the latest:
Disney (Disney +, Hulu, ESPN+)
157 M* (six-month average)
*There are only 60.4 M active Disney accounts, but they estimate 2.6 people use each account… that’s some great math for them.
From earlier:
Fox’s Tubi
97 M
Roku
90 M
Netflix
70 M
With Disney’s three streaming services they always appear to be the biggest juggernaut. However, the majority of Netflix users are paid, which reigns supreme when stacked against Roku and Tubi, which are free.
Mythic Quest Season 4: Apple TV+'s video game workplace comedy Mythic Quest Season 4 returns. All cast members are planned to return including EP and star Rob Mcelhenney. After finally achieving success the Mythic Quest team will have to work together to check egos and keep the MMO crown. The brand new trailer also shows some problems with an AI and risque user-created content that forces the team to testify to Congress. Apple TV+ will premiere Mythic Quest Season 4 on January 29, 2025, with two episodes, followed by weekly releases through March 26.
The Emmys are making some changes. The Television Academy has announced several rule adjustments for this year’s 77th Emmy Awards.
Guest Performance Eligibility:
Actors who have won or been nominated in a lead or supporting category will be excluded from a nomination as a guest performance in a reprisal of that same role
Directing:
Directors may submit multiple (episodes) submissions within the same category as long as they are from different programs.
Read the rest of the changes about Music and Casting here.
Additional rule changes will be made effective for the 78th Emmy competition (2026).
Mini tidbits:
Reacher may have met his match: Season 3 of Reacher premieres on Prime Video on February 20, 2025, featuring Jack Reacher going undercover against an enemy from the past, and his titan of a bodyguard. Fans are hyped up and excited this season will be adapting Persuader the Seventh and what many fans consider the best novel in the series.
The trailer is explosive, with a good extra serving of punches. Streaming on Prime on February 20th.
Theodore Farnsworth, former MoviePass CEO, pleads guilty to securities fraud, admitting he misled investors about MoviePass’s sustainability and false AI claims to inflate stock prices, something the DOJ coined “AI washing.” He faces up to 25 years in prison; sentencing is pending.
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Jack Quaid is one sick F*** in Companion. In his new film, he seems to be getting off on torturing his robot slave (Sophie Thatcher). And his robot slave seems to be getting off in turning the tables and hunting him. The film is being produced by Zach Cregger (dir: Barbarians) and Distributed by Warner Bros. (The Notebook). So a match made in heaven given Quaid’s proclivity to get drenched in blood in The Boys. In theaters Jan 31st.
Ironically, Quaid will next star in Paramount’s forthcoming Novocaine, where his body is immune to feeling pain. Release date for that is March 14th.
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Shortly after launching his production company Billy17 last month, Tom Holland will produce and star in an adaptation of John Grisham’s best-selling legal/thriller novel The Partner. Oscar winning The Imitation Game (2014) screenwriter, Graham Moore is penning the script.
Holland will play Patrick Lanigan, a young partner in a prominent Biloxi law firm. Here’s the synopsis:
A lawyer (Holland) from New Orleans steals $90 M from his law firm after he fakes his own death. What was thought to be a flawless plan, leads him into a bigger web of problems, where he is tortured and charged with capital murder.
In terms of his acting career, Holland was one of the first casting announcements a part of the star-studded next Christopher Nolan film, a retelling of the classic Odyssey story set to premiere summer of 2026. This past summer, the young British actor was praised for his run in the London stage production of Romeo and Juliet, which went on for 12 weeks.
While Holland is already officially attached to star as Spiderman at least three more times, it seems the actor is certainly taking risks, attempting to evolve as an actor and separate, or at least distance, himself from the all-encompassing Marvel bubble.
We love to see Chris Abbott's violent side. There’s a burbling rage under his timid looks that feels ready to seethe through. So before he was cast in the maximal version of this (Universal’s Wolf Man) it was on full display in the work of director Josh Mond: James White (trailer) and the upcoming It Doesn't Matter (2024, exclusive preview).
His latest feat, Bring Them Down, is getting a Feb 2025 release by Mubi:
Dir: Christopher Andrews (feature debut)
Co-Starring: Barry Keoghan
Premiere: TIFF
Production Company/Distributor: Mubi
Synopsis:
An Irish shepherding family thrust into battle on several fronts: internal strife, hostility within the family, rivalry with another farmer. Paternalism, heritage, and the generational trauma cycle through the cultural prism of Ireland.
Trailer, from livestock to deadstock.
FESTIVALS AND RESOURCES
DGA Nominees. Check out the full list here. It’s nice that the Focus Features Sundance film Didi got a shot out for First Time Theatrical Feature Film.
SAG Nominees. Check out the full list here. Pamela Anderson and Jeremy Strong made it in. Angelina Jolie, considered an Oscar Best Actress front-runner, did not.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT AND INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Goodfellas (prod company: Emmanuelle (2024), sales rep: Megalopolis) is unveiling a whole catalog of French-language films slated to premiere this year. The new unconventional romance film, An Affair (IMDBpro Link), is from director Arnaud Desplechin (My Golden Days) in collaboration with rising French stars François Civil (Beating Hearts) and Nadia Tereszkiewicz (The Crime is Mine) and the brilliant Charlotte Rampling (Melancholia). Among other films, the team Desplechin project’s synopsis stands out:
A pianist returns to France after a long personal exile where an encounter with a child who looks just like him leads to the woman he once loved.
An Affair is currently still in production.
Founder and former CEO of London-based distribution and production company Modern Films, Eve Gabereau to run Vue Lumière, a newly established distribution arm. Modern Films was established in 2017 with the release of the Cate Blanchett-led film Manifesto. Modern Films is also behind two award contenders this year being Vermiglio (Venice Silver Lion Winner) and the stop-motion animation Memoir of a Snail. Gabereau will be taking over Vue effective immediately.
Something I love about the Bollywood cinema I’ve seen is how wonderfully gaudy it is. It is over the top in the best possible way (take 2022’s RRR). In 2025, we’re going to get a new Bollywood blockbuster: Toxic. No word on the plot, but sit back and enjoy the Great Gastby-esque slow-mo New Year's party teaser—it’s pure eye candy.
The film will star Yash (repped by Gersh Agency), whose last film K.G.F: Chapter 2 grossed $160 M worldwide.
ON THIS DAY
1955. J. K. Simmons born in Grosse Pointe, Michigan.
See you tomorrow!
Written by Gabriel Miller, Spencer Carter, and Madelyn Menapace.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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